The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said that trafficked medical products killed almost half a million sub-Saharan Africans, including Nigerians, every year.
UNODC stated this on Monday in its new threat assessment report.
According to the report, the lack of access to healthcare and medicines had been fuelling a host of opportunists aimed at filling the gaps.
The report —Trafficking in Medical Products in the Sahel showed that this supply and imbalance in demand had triggered deadly results.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the transnational organised crime threat assessment found that as many as 267,000 deaths per year are linked to falsified and substandard antimalarial medicines.
Reports also confirmed up to 169,271 deaths linked to falsified and substandard antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia in children.
Findings revealed that trafficking these products also took a direct economic toll on affected countries.
According to World Health Organisation (WHO), caring for people who have used falsified or substandard medical products for malaria treatment in sub-Saharan Africa costs between $12 million to $44.7 million every year.
